In an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a printer or facsimile equipment, first an electrostatic latent image formed on an image carrier is developed with a toner, the developed toner image is transferred onto a recording medium directly or through an intermediate transfer belt or the like, and an image is fixed on the recording medium by heating and pressurizing the unfixed toner image on the recording medium using a fixing belt or a roller.
In the image forming apparatus, various transfer/fixing members are used such as an intermediate transfer belt that transfers a toner to a recording medium such as paper, and a fixing belt that heats and fixes a toner image transferred from the intermediate transfer belt to the recording medium.
For example, an intermediate transfer belt as a transfer member plays a role of attracting a toner on a photoconductor to the belt (primary transfer), and transferring the toner to a recording medium (secondary transfer). The intermediate transfer belt moves the toner by means of an electrostatic force. Thus, the intermediate transfer belt is required to precisely control conductivity, and in general, conductivity is controlled by, for example, a method in which a resin as a base material of the belt is mixed with a conducting agent to impart conductivity.
For the transfer member, various methods have been studied for improving performance such as heat resistance, durability or toner releasability for the purpose of improving the image quality of an image obtained by the image forming apparatus. As one of the methods, formation of a coating layer composed of an inorganic-organic hybrid material on a substrate of a transfer member by a sol-gel method is known.
For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a transfer/fixing member for an electrophotography apparatus which includes a substrate, and a coating layer composed of an inorganic-organic hybrid material formed on the substrate by a sol-gel method, so that the transfer/fixing member for an electrophotography apparatus has heat resistance, durability and improved toner releasability.
In addition, for example, Patent Document 2 discloses a transfer/fixing member for an electrophotography apparatus which includes a substrate, and a coating layer composed of an inorganic-organic hybrid material formed on the substrate by a sol-gel method, and has a surface roughness Rz of 15 μm or less, so that the transfer/fixing member for an electrophotography apparatus has heat resistance, durability and reduced image quality defects.
In addition, for example, Patent Document 3 discloses a transfer/fixing member for an electrophotography apparatus in which an inorganic-organic hybrid material release layer having a fluoroalkyl group is formed on a substrate surface by a sol-gel method, so that the transfer/fixing member for an electrophotography apparatus has heat resistance, durability and improved toner releasability.